Pamplin faculty, staff recognized with awards

Several Pamplin College of Business faculty and staff have recently been honored with awards for their work during the 2020-21 academic year.

Donna Wertalik, professor of practice in the Marketing Department and the director of marketing strategy and analytics for the Pamplin College of Business, was named the Advisor of the Year during the Student Organization Leadership awards. The Advisor of the Year award was created to recognize the advisor of a student organization who has made outstanding contributions through support, energy, and resources.

“I’ve been advising since the day I began at Virginia Tech, and it has been one of the biggest rewards in my career,” said Wertalik. “Students are our future and helping them soar is what we do as advisors.”

Wertalik received her award for her work with PRISM, the student-run interdisciplinary advertising and marketing agency which Wertalik founded in 2010. In the words of her nominator, “Donna Wertalik consistently makes nothing but positive impacts on anyone she interacts with, and PRISM is no exception. Donna has been a consistent source of support and inspiration to PRISM members since the beginning of the organization.

“She is an available resource to members whenever they need assistance and she takes time to make sure every single member knows that she is there as a resource in every way possible – an advisor, mentor, sounding board, or someone to talk to.”

Pamplin handed its Diversity Excellence Awards, which recognizes the contributions of individuals or groups of individuals who demonstrate exemplar leadership in the areas of diversity, inclusion, and equity in the following categories: faculty, staff, and undergraduate students.

According to the awards criteria, recipients “should epitomize excellence, significant achievement, and success in advancing the college’s mission of empowering the diverse communities we serve.”

Accounting and Information Systems Assistant Professor Michelle Harding received the faculty award. Quinton Nottingham, an associate professor in BIT, received faculty honorable mention.

For Pamplin staff, Holly Cromer, graduate enrollment assistant in HTM, and Kim Ridpath, executive assistant for the Dean of Business, were both honored with the Diversity Excellence Award. Amanda Armstrong, an academic advisor for Undergraduate Programs, received staff honorable mention.

Nominations for the Diversity Excellence Awards come from fellow faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community members.

The College of Business also handed out its Annual Award for Faculty Research Excellence, or MVP. Phil Thompson, assistant professor in Management, and Juan Luis Nicolau, J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Professorship of Revenue Management in HTM, each received the award. 

Idris Adjerid, associate professor in BIT, Sarah Stein, associate professor in ACIS and Deloitte Foundation Faculty Fellow, and Liang Tan, assistant professor in ACIS, each received honorable mention.

Congratulations to each of the award winners!